You see them standing on crowded street corners holding signs upon which are statements like, “Will work for food,” “Anything helps,” and a final “thank you” and “God bless you;” people who for various reasons find themselves homeless.
When you see them. What do you do? Do you turn away and ignore them? Do you rolldown your window and shout at them? Do you pray for them? Do you share the love of Jesus with them? Do you serve them?
You might call them the “least of these” (Matt. 25:40,45) but the reality is that while so many people treat them as if they were nobodies and nothing – the Lord God made them and the Lord Jesus Christ died for them. They are just like you and me and frankly, you and I are at best, one calamity away from being right where they are now.
In His word, the Lord said that they’d always be among us (Matt. 26:10) and in a round-about way He implied that when we served them – we were serving Him (see Matt.25:32-40).
I’d like to say that in the process of serving the homeless or anyone else you are also worshipping Jesus. Listen to ALL of what He said to Judas in (Matthew 26:10):
“You have the poor with you always…but Me you do not have always.”
I think that Jesus was calling Judas out for his hypocrisy among a few other things when He made the statement we find in (Matt 26:10) referring to the poor. It was after Judas had griped about the waste of costly fragrant oil which a certain woman used in her worship of the Lord Jesus, implying that her sacrifice could have been put to better use that Jesus said those words to Judas,
At that time, people could literally worship Jesus to His face; they could thank Him, praise Him and sacrificially honor Him like the woman did in (Matt. 26:6-7) but most of them did not. In His statement, Jesus was pointing to the fact that He was returning to His Father (see John 13:3, John 16:28, John 20:17) but He was also pointing to times like those in which we live, where our worship of Him is most often carried out in sacrificial service towards others who are often less fortunate than ourselves.
Once upon a time I was like many people in my community, largely because I did not understand or really care to understand the plight of the homeless. I saw them as panhandlers and manipulators, as people who weren’t trying hard enough. In those days, even as a Christian I avoided them.
Now, my primary area of service IS to that same community. My heart hurts for them and I long to see them recieve Jesus as Lord and Savior and then to be transformed by the renewing of their minds through His Holy Scriptures.
Would you be Christ to the least of these? Dont sweep them under the rug, so to speak; don’t treat them as a nuisance to be rid of – treat them as people for whom Christ died; do for them what you’d have done for yourself if the shoe was on the other foot.
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